OK, I’ll be honest, it’s been done for a few weeks now, I’m just finally getting around to writing about it. I won’t bore you with all the details of getting the “final” bill only to have items we had to haggle over. I just want to say when your contractor won’t give you credit for unused material they purchased because it’s open and you ask for the material back since you paid for it, and when you get it back from them, you see the “opened” part consists of them having pulled open 1 of the four flaps on the cover, but none of the material is actually used, you know your contractor is trying to screw you over.
But it’s done. We won’t ever do business with Property Revival again. The final payment was made on September 18, 140 days after the “9 week” project started May 1.
Enough bitching. As promised, here are some before and after pictures of the whole thing. Sit back and enjoy the carousel. We actually like our kitchen a lot and can’t wait to host our big family Thanksgiving dinner.
We’re giving up. Coming up on day 100 of the Great Kitchen Remodel and they still aren’t done. Though I think I’m done blogging about it until they are.
It hasn’t been totally silent. Last week Monday they installed the pop-up outlet. That’s pretty cool. Of course, that was the only thing that happened last week. Today they came in a cleaned up a few odds and ends, but that was it. Who knows what else will be done or when it will be done. They don’t really talk to us much any more other than tell us they have to get the plumber back in, they have to get the tile guy back in, they have to get the electrician back in…sigh.
At this point, I’m just hoping they’re done by Thanksgiving. But until then, I’m done writing about this fiasco. Next post will be when it’s all done and I hope to have some before and after pics to sum it all up.
I’ve been slacking a little bit lately. They’ve been here doing things in bits and pieces. They got the backsplash for the range in place. They cleaned. They got the microwave installed and did some additional electrical stuff (but of course, didn’t install the popup outlet because we’re still lacking a hole). And I haven’t been blogging any of that.
Because we just want them done!!!
This is just dragging on way too long and we’re both getting a bit worn out by the whole process. We just want them done and out of our house. The last two days they’ve made some progress by finishing tiling some additional backsplash. This was an extra.
We went from this.
To this.
After they got the backsplash on the other wall, Dena was looking around and decided she wanted it continued there in that little opening. So we did it. We’re pretty happy. We think it helps tie the whole room together a bit more.
Still a few more odds and ends and we still might not have the whole lien thing worked out yet. I’ll check on the status of that tomorrow. I think it’s taken care of but one more call to be sure.
Yep. Let’s see, last post was Day 74, this is Day 82. So in 8 days they were able to drill 2 holes.
Well, that’s not entirely accurate. In those intervening 8 days besides drilling 2 holes they did come back and repaint the kitchen (getting paint on the cabinets and trim in the process) and a cleaning crew came in and cleaned the entire kitchen and foyer. (Why have a cleaning crew come in to clean when there is still some pretty major work to be done? I don’t know.)
But still, progress has been painfully slow lately. We actually have neighbors coming up to us now.
Neighbor What are you having done?
Us The kitchen.
Neighbor That’s it!?!
Yes, we sheepishly admit, that’s it. I get there are delays in any project, but this is getting a bit ridiculous. It’s not like we’ve been asking for a bunch of last-minute changes. They just aren’t very good at scheduling things.
Oh well, the two holes are there to be filled by an air gap for the dishwasher and a switch for the disposal. A little push-button thingie right there in the surface of the countertop.
We’re also having a pop-up outlet installed in the middle of the island. This one in fact. It’ll be a round thing you push down on and it pops up and you got 2 outlets and 2 USB ports to plug things in. When done, push it back down and it’s out of the way. We liked that idea better than hanging cords off the side to plug things in. But, of course, when the guys were here drilling holes for the air gap and the switch, they couldn’t drill the hole for the outlet because they didn’t have the right drill bits with them. So, now they’ll have to come back some time next week and finish that up.
The electrician should be here next week as well to install the rest of the electrical stuff. (Except the pop-up outlet of course, he’ll probably have to come back later to finish that up.) Then that’ll just about wrap it up for major stuff. Then comes the dreaded punch-list. We get to go around and list all the things we see wrong that we want them to come fix (like finish installing the range for example) and then wait for them to come fix it. At this rate, we’re honestly wondering if we’ll have our kitchen done by Thanksgiving. Which we’d better cause we’ll be having our families over just like we do every year.
But in the meanwhile, we’ve actually started to use it all a little bit. Last Sunday we roasted a chicken in the oven.
See, when I was busy analyzing every aspect of kitchen ranges trying to pick out the one I wanted (no, I’m not obsessive about these things, just a bit picky) the Capital range was high on the list but it came with this rotisserie. My thought at that time was, “When are we ever going to use a rotisserie?” But, in the end I liked that one the most so we got it—even if I thought I’d never actually use that giant metal fork thingie.
Flash forward to last sunday and we say, “Hey, let’s roast a chicken!” So we do.
Comes with that massive metal rod which has a place way in the back corner for you to stick it. After, of course, you impaled your meat on it. Then you just turn it on and let the rotisserie magic happen (and put a pan underneath it otherwise you’ll have a huge mess all over the bottom of your oven).
Hour or so later and, damn, that came out looking good.
So we carved it up.
And ate it.
Those beans are from our garden. The bird was stuffed with lots and lots of herbs from our herb garden as well. We were both surprised at just how juicy and flavorful it was. We could actually taste all the fresh basil, oregano and thyme I stuffed in there. It was amazing.
So guess what, we’ll be using the rotisserie again. I’m glad we got it. Oooh, maybe I’ll rotisserie the turkey for Thanksgiving!
So that’s the end of my story for today. Hope you’ll join me all next time on
There it is. I think we’re entering the final stretch. Electrician was here and he put in all the outlets, switches and ceiling lights. Makes a real difference. Looking almost done.
Here’s a closer-up shot of the actual lights over the island. Dena has a really good eye for that sort of thing. She picks well.
And we got flames too! Check this out. Six full burners of bright blue flames. Not sure I’ll ever cook six things at once, but you never know. Thanksgivings get mighty crowded around here sometimes.
Back Monday to paint, and tile, and fix the one pantry cabinet, and finish up some plumbing and finish up some electrical. Yeah, right. That’s the plan at least. Seems a bit unrealistic to me given how pokey this whole thing has been. But, we’ll see.
Until then, we may actually cook something on our new range this weekend. I’ll let you know if we do.
Heh, notice that little black spot on the wall next to the duct-work? That’s a hole in the wall. You may recall seeing previous pics where they had the duct coming out of the wall and the wire coming out next to it. When it was there I thought to myself, “Self, I’m not sure the hood duct work is gonna cover that up. Looks mighty far away.” But honestly, with all the times I’ve tried to warn them about things and they’ve brushed me off telling me not to worry about it, I just let it be. And see, they figured it out. They must have, cause it works!
You can’t hear it, but the fan’s running in that picture.
So that was nice to see. It’s always a bit of a surprise to see what’ll be different when I get home. Like I said previously, we aren’t really on schedule, but things are progressing. Next they’re gonna be in tomorrow to grout the backsplash. And no “I am Grout!” jokes this time.
Your basic off-white subway tile with a little strip of highlight. Those are a mix of glass and tile. Brings out the same sort of colors in the floor and walls and cabinets.
OK, so I’m getting a bit silly with the titles on these posts. Shoot me. Looks like they found another plumber cause he was here today and got some stuff hooked up.
Got the dishwasher hooked up (sort-of) and installed. There’s plumbing for it all there but there’s still no outlet to plug it in. Guess next step is electrical. To the right is our sink and faucet.
Didn’t realize when we bought it that it came with those grids to put on the bottom or that metal thingie to the left. Turns out that can completely span one of the sinks, front to back, and you can use it as a drying rack or dripping rack or something. Those are square rods and the whole thing turns out to be pretty sturdy. And then it rolls up into a little bundle. It’s pretty cool.
That was really it for today. Still have quite a bit to finish up: painting, tile, electrical. I’m sure it’ll get done but we’re getting pretty tired of this whole process. We just want it done.
Oh, one more thing, we did buy some stools today also to go around the eating end. The Madison Swivel stool from Amisco. The body is made of metal and will be a rubbed bronze like the handles. The seat will be a dark fabric and the back…well, the middle slat in the back is going to be wood colored the same as the cabinets. Except they don’t make that color so we ordered them unfinished. I’ll have to finish them myself once they come in. They’ll look good there.
Heh, so on the third, we got a notice in our mailbox of a certified letter waiting for us that required a signature. It said the sender was Grams & Associates. Well, that sounded interesting. So a quick DuckDuckGo search turns up David F. Grams & Associates, S.C. Attorneys at Law. They’re a law firm in Madison specializing in Trusts and Estates and Business Law. Got me interested. So of course, this is now a holiday so I have to wait to be able to go get the letter. Luckily for me, I usually work from home on Fridays so today I was able to run and pick it up. Here’s what it said.
For those who don’t want to zoom in it says in part:
The undersigned Subcontractor, having contracted with Property Revival LLC, performed, … plumbing work to improve your Property located at … and, as of the date of this Notice, is owed the sum of $725.00 for said work. If payment in full is not received within thirty (30) days … the Subcontractor intends to file a Claim for Lien on your Property.
Wonderful.
So me, being the smart-ass I am texts Jerry, the contractor.
Jim: Hey Jerry, got a problem with your plumber?
Jerry: uh, yeah…
I honestly have no idea what’s going on but I was assured he and his lawyers have the situation well in hand and I don’t have to worry about it. I’m actually not worried. I suspect these kind of spats happen all the time. But it is something to keep an eye on.
Maybe next remodeling project I’ll be my own general contractor and avoid all this crap.
Meanwhile, absolutely nothing has happened on the house. Plumbing issues aside, I’m sure the holidays messed up scheduling. We’re hopeful folks will be in next week to actually finish this up. We’re getting tired of this.
I’m lying here again. This all happened Friday, but we took off right after work to go see our son at UND where he’s off learning to become a commercial airline pilot. He really likes it there–well, not exactly likes it. He loves flying but could really do without the winters. So he likes to spend his summers up there taking flying classes so he can stay ahead in his program and fly lots. We miss him, but he’s off doing what he loves. That’s important.
Anyway, we left right after work and I didn’t have time to write all this up, so I’ll just back-date this and pretend like this was all posted last Friday. Back to the kitchen.
Apparently Dena got to hear a bunch of swearing in a foreign language on Friday. The countertops arrived and she got to watch a bunch of hulky, sweaty, swarthy guys with all their muscles rippling carry in this big, honkin’ slab of quartz.
And a couple smaller pieces, but those don’t count really. She says they were saying a bunch of things she didn’t recognize but she assumes were swear words. Apparently that stuff is heavy.
But they seemed to know what they were doing because the got them in place and they look pretty darn good.
No, that faucet’s not attached. I just stuck it there to see what it would look like.
We’re actually pretty happy the snafu of a couple of weeks ago happened–recall, the one where they told us they ran out of countertop material and as a result we wouldn’t get our counters for about a month? After hearing that, Dena went out and looked at some new stuff and picked out a different style that she thought she liked better. Turns out, she was right.
The new stuff has more of a brown tone to it with flecks of gold-ish rather than the more pure black with streaks of white. We really like how this blends with everything else we got going on in here. It’s coming along.
Today, (the real today, Monday) they came and finished up the trim. Looks real nice. That guy does a real nice job on the trim. The rest of this week is supposed to be some finish plumbing, painting (they’re gonna re-paint the walls), and then backsplash tiling. So I hope to have more posts as the week wears on.
Well, today was a busy day. After a couple of weeks of nothing and a bit of stress all of a sudden today the appliances were delivered, they started to put trim in place and we got the tree damage from the other week cleaned up.
First came the appliance guys. Well, actually they came second, but the trim guys got here before the trim so they were pretty much just standing around waiting. Then the appliance guys showed up so they get first billing. Besides, the title, “Appliances, Trim and Trees” has a nicer ring to it.
The appliances showed up. The first question they ask, “Are you ready for them to be installed?” My answer, “Nope.” Lemme explain.
See, we had this delay with the countertops, but I was told to schedule the appliance delivery for the 28th anyway. So I did. Well, as this week was approaching, I’m emailing them saying, “Are you sure they should be delivering the appliances?” My concern was the electrical and plumbing wasn’t done yet so they wouldn’t be able to plug in or hook up the waterline on the fridge. The range was OK, that already had a gas line and an outlet, but I was a wee-bit concerned about the fridge.
When I point this out to Property Revival, their response was, “Sure, that’s fine. Have them deliver and install it.”
Me says, “How are they going to hook them up?”
They say, “It’s fine, have them deliver and install it.”
Me says, “How are they going to hook them up?”
They say, “We told you before it’s fine, don’t worry about it.”
Finally on Tuesday we had a bit of a heart to heart and all of a sudden they’re saying, “Uh, hmm, we’ll get back to you on that.”
So they scrambled and were able to get the electrician to come out Wednesday and hook up the electrical, but the plumber couldn’t make it.
Forward to today and we decide to let them install them both without the waterline for the fridge. Property Revival will then have to pull it out, install the waterline, and then put it back. People.
Now that the fun story is over time for some appliance porn.
I finally got my fridge. I like that. That’s exactly how I was picturing this looking. And it works!
Yeah, it’s not totally in place yet. A little more story. See, turns out the range is a direct wired hookup, no plug, it has to be hard-wired in place and we have a plug there. Also, the gas line coming up from the floor sticks up too high so the plumber will have to shorten it. So the range isn’t exactly in place quite yet, but both of those things should be done tomorrow. Stay tuned.
And while all that was going on, the trim showed up and the trim guys got to work. I have to say, they do a really nice job. They put in the cabinets and now they’re finishing up the baseboard and door trim. We like it.
Professionals. Way better at mitered corners than I am.
And now on to the final topic of this post. Last week, we had some storms come through Janesville. Not officially a tornado, but as I was driving down one of the main streets to my house after work there was an awful lot of tree damage and crews out. I said to myself, “uh, oh.”
I got home and the front was fine, but one of the trees in back, not so much.
Bummer.
We were finally able to get Paul’s Tree Service to come out here and get it cleaned up for us. They did nice work.
And that’s the end of my grand adventure for the day! Pretty hectic first thing in the morning, but turned out well overall.
Well, today was a busy day. After a couple of weeks of nothing and a bit of stress all of a sudden today the appliances were delivered, they started to put trim in place and we got the tree damage from the other week cleaned up.
First came the appliance guys. Well, actually they came second, but the trim guys got here before the trim so they were pretty much just standing around waiting. Then the appliance guys showed up so they get first billing. Besides, the title, “Appliances, Trim and Trees” has a nicer ring to it.
The appliances showed up. The first question they ask, “Are you ready for them to be installed?” My answer, “Nope.” Lemme explain.
See, we had this delay with the countertops, but I was told to schedule the appliance delivery for the 28th anyway. So I did. Well, as this week was approaching, I’m emailing them saying, “Are you sure they should be delivering the appliances?” My concern was the electrical and plumbing wasn’t done yet so they wouldn’t be able to plug in or hook up the waterline on the fridge. The range was OK, that already had a gas line and an outlet, but I was a wee-bit concerned about the fridge.
When I point this out to Property Revival, their response was, “Sure, that’s fine. Have them deliver and install it.”
Me says, “How are they going to hook them up?”
They say, “It’s fine, have them deliver and install it.”
Me says, “How are they going to hook them up?”
They say, “We told you before it’s fine, don’t worry about it.”
Finally on Tuesday we had a bit of a heart to heart and all of a sudden they’re saying, “Uh, hmm, we’ll get back to you on that.”
So they scrambled and were able to get the electrician to come out Wednesday and hook up the electrical, but the plumber couldn’t make it.
Forward to today and we decide to let them install them both without the waterline for the fridge. Property Revival will then have to pull it out, install the waterline, and then put it back. People.
Now that the fun story is over time for some appliance porn.
I finally got my fridge. I like that. That’s exactly how I was picturing this looking. And it works!
Yeah, it’s not totally in place yet. A little more story. See, turns out the range is a direct wired hookup, no plug, it has to be hard-wired in place and we have a plug there. Also, the gas line coming up from the floor sticks up too high so the plumber will have to shorten it. So the range isn’t exactly in place quite yet, but both of those things should be done tomorrow. Stay tuned.
And while all that was going on, the trim showed up and the trim guys got to work. I have to say, they do a really nice job. They put in the cabinets and now they’re finishing up the baseboard and door trim. We like it.
Professionals. Way better at mitered corners than I am.
And now on to the final topic of this post. Last week, we had some storms come through Janesville. Not officially a tornado, but as I was driving down one of the main streets to my house after work there was an awful lot of tree damage and crews out. I said to myself, “uh, oh.”
I got home and the front was fine, but one of the trees in back, not so much.
Bummer.
We were finally able to get Paul’s Tree Service to come out here and get it cleaned up for us. They did nice work.
And that’s the end of my grand adventure for the day! Pretty hectic first thing in the morning, but turned out well overall.
Finished up putting handles on all things and re-did the island. I guess they think the countertops will be heavy.
Pretty slow day. I think now we won’t see much change for a while. The countertop guys are supposed to be in tomorrow to make templates so they can go make the countertops and then come put them on. I think there will be more trim work done in the meanwhile. I’ll keep you all updated as things go by.
Back to being clever (or so I think). Looks like cabinet folks spent the day putting some handles on our cabinets. We really like them.
And here we have our floating shelves. Those too turned out super nice.
And finally, they have the outline of the table built. Love the legs we picked out.
Now we’re gonna have our first, change our mind and it’s gonna cost us, moment. We think the island is too short. That there is 9 feet long (or thereabouts). Our intention is for 4 people to sit in this area, one on each side and 2 on the end. That will work with what’s there, but if people are on the sides and the end, we think knees will be bumping. Probably not too bad, but we don’t want to feel cramped. We have the room, so we’re gonna ask them to re-do that portion and lengthen it out to 10 feet. This will give people on the sides plenty of room. Now I get to compose the email to the contractor.
That’s it. That was a nice anniversary present to us. Now we get to go out to dinner. Eating out at Clara Bo in Beloit, WI.
Yeah, no clever titles this time. Not feeling it. Got home yesterday and saw cabinets in the kitchen.
I gotta say, they look nice and this is starting to look like a kitchen.
This is where the range and range hood will go. We’re going to have white subway tile as a backsplash between the upper and lowers with an accent strip somewhere along there.
This is the view of the island and the cabinet wall (for lack of a better term. On that wall between the cabinets will be three floating shelves. Sink and dishwasher here up in the front of the picture.
And then another view of the kitchen back toward the range. The refrigerator will go in that opening to the right. The cabinets next to that are pull-out pantry-style cabinets. Those will be nice. On this end of the island the countertop will extend out a couple of feet and be our seating area. We’ll have room for one on each side and two on the end.
Next they have to finish up trim work. Put in a bit more crown molding and then the trim all around things. This was partly why I didn’t write up this post last night. We had to meet with the contractor to discuss what we wanted for trim. That took way longer than expected. With us, we take forever to really decide on things. We usually need time to let ideas settle and percolate through our minds before we’re happy with them. What makes this doubly hard is all the existing woodwork in the foyer and family room don’t really match each other and now we’re adding more stuff that doesn’t quite match any of that. Dena is having a hard time deciding what to do. We know the shape of the trim, just don’t quite know the color yet. I’m sure she’ll come up with something we’ll be happy with.
Progress! Next the counter people come in and measure so they can go make our counters. They already warned us that would take about 2 weeks so we should be patient and expect a bit of a lull again in work. So stay tuned and I’ll keep this blog updated.
Now I’m really cheating. I’m writing this two days after the date on this post. But it’s not really cheating because the work happened 2 days ago and I’m just getting around to writing about it today. Eh, who cares. I’m writing.
We had tile put in on Friday! Tile guys came, started at the far side of the kitchen and worked their way out the front door.
Here is the view from inside the kitchen.
And the view from my office.
I’m gonna blame my iPhone camera but, in person, the colors I see don’t really look like those pics. But that’s OK because I think I’m getting used to the idea that colors in general change constantly over the course of the day. Dena & I have seen this time and again, we pick out some color that’s brown, or blue, or green or whatever. We get it on the wall and say, “Whoa! that’s not the color we thought it was.” And then later in the day when the sun has moved, “Yeah! That’s the color we wanted.” Even in the same room at the same time, one wall will look one color and another, perpendicular wall will look to be a completely different color. It’s strange.
Bringing it back to the tile. What we picked out was kind of a granity-green-ish. Now that it’s in, at different times and in different places, it looks more grey or more brown. Go figure. Regardless, we like it a lot. It’s all really starting to come together. Looks good with the walls in both the foyer and the kitchen and will go nicely with the cabinets once they’re in place. Which should happen Monday because the cabinets were delivered Friday as well!
Now for the adventure part of this blog post. As many people know, when tile is laid, you have to stay off it for about 24 hours to allow the thinset (mortar) to set properly. Othewise, the tiles will shift or may even break. Given that the foyer and kitchen are central to our house we planned to spend the night in a hotel.
So I’m sitting here in my office after the guys left waiting for Dena to come home, when I hear a noise like ductwork flexing. We all know that sound from TV with the good-guy crawling through the ducts to get the bad-guy. So I start hearing that sound and I think, “Oh shit”.
See that?
That little hole way off in the corner of the kitchen is a vent. Of course the vent cover was removed for the tiling and I don’t see Molly (our cat) around anywhere. I’m convinced she went down that vent hole.
See, it’s OK for cats to walk on newly laid tile. They aren’t generally heavy enough to affect it, it’s just us fat humans that can’t walk on it. So I think I have a cat stuck in the duct work and we’re supposed to be leaving for the night and all the next day. We can’t leave her to wander around the ducts for a day. She’ll starve!
So Jim rigs up a way to spider-man-it from my office door to the basement door without disturbing too many tiles. I get down there and start moving aside those drop-ceiling tiles we have down there to try to find the duct work to see if I can somehow poke a cat out of there. Then, of course, Dena calls down, “I have Molly!” She was never in there.
Stupid cat.
So we went to dinner and stayed in a hotel here in town. Stopped back Saturday morning to feed and check on the cats (no cats in the ducts), spent a nice day with Dena’s mom helping her get some shopping done, got back last night (still not cats in ducts) and could finally walk all over it.
That’s the end of our tile adventure. Cabinets were delivered late Friday and should be put in place come Monday. Gonna really start looking like a kitchen now.
Tile guy came today. Bright and early, 7 a.m. there he was knocking on the door. Good thing I was up and showered and ready to go for the day already. Did mostly prep work and now we have orange flooring:
I had no idea what that stuff was or why it was on my floor. So I looked it up. Nice of Schluter to put their name so prominently on their product. Here is what they say it is:
Schluter®-DITRA is a polyethylene membrane with a grid structure of square cavities, each cut back in a dovetail configuration, and an anchoring fleece laminated to the underside. The anchoring fleece is embedded in thin-set mortar to provide a mechanical bond to the substrate. Tile is installed over DITRA using the thin-bed method in such a way that the mortar becomes mechanically anchored in the square, cutback cavities of the matting. Designed specifically for ceramic tile and dimension stone installations, DITRA serves as an uncoupling layer, waterproofing membrane, and vapor management layer that accommodates moisture from beneath the tile covering. Further, DITRA performs all these functions while still providing adequate support/load distribution for the tile covering. The combination of these four essential functions allows for the successful installation of tile over a wide range of substrates, including plywood/ OSB, concrete, gypsum, heated floors, etc.
So there you go. We have a plywood substrate in our kitchen so it seems to make sense use something like that to…oh hell, who am I kidding? I trust they know what they’re doing. I was just curious what that stuff was. I’m convinced by Schluter’s marketing.
Anyway, remember this?
They started to tear up the floor in the foyer and discovered another layer of tile under the existing tile. They thought they were going to have to jack-hammer up the concrete underneath it all and then decided to just remove the top layer and tile over it. Well, the tile guy fixed that all up too.
All better now full of nice, new concrete (or whatever that stuff is).
He says tomorrow he’ll be able to tile the entire floor. That’s great news, except that means we have to go spend the night somewhere. Once the tile is laid, we’re supposed to stay off it entirely for at least 24 hours to allow it to set. Otherwise we could break some of the tile. Since the foyer and kitchen completely block off all access to just about all the rest of the house, we’re gonna go get a room for the night.
I’ll still try to get some pix before we take off and post something.
That’s it for today. Tune in next time for the further adventures of Jim & Dena’s kitchen.
I’m slacking again. Sure there were a couple of days of inaction lately and they’ve been working the last few days but the progress has been somewhat minimal and hard to show off.
They basically took this
And turned it into this
And then turned it into this
The drywallers have been here finishing up the walls and today the painters showed up and painted it all green. That’s going to be the color of the kitchen. Or at least, those parts of the walls you’ll actually be able to see. That wall there you really won’t see much of because it’ll have cabinets on top and bottom, a range and range hood in the middle (you can see the venting sticking out of the wall there) and a tile backsplash where you’d expect backsplash to be.
Here you’ll see more of the green:
This will be the dining area and that green wall is pretty much what you’ll see when this is all finished.
Still looks like they need to do another coat over the whole room. Then the tile guy is supposed to show up and start laying tile.
This is beginning to look like a real room for a change.
I’m always amazed at what professional plasterers can do. And how quickly they can do it.
I’ve done my own drywalling and hole-patching over the years. Having kids, and life in general means you have to patch walls on occasion. I get it done, but it always takes me like 47 rounds of spackling, sanding, spackling some more and it end up looking…OK. Occasionally I achieve “good”. But professionals, in one day the get that whole edge cleaned up and looking like a real wall.
Then look at this. Here is before:
And now here it is after today:
That’s almost looking like a real wall. Not bad especially since almost that entire wall will be covered in cabinets.
Then we also had some venting installed. You’d think they’d have done this before they put all the drywall up, but what do I know?
I think they had scheduling difficulty with the HVAC guy so they kinda had to do that. This is going to be where and how the range hood vents. They ended up having to go down with the venting rather than up like we had wanted them to. They say it’ll be OK. I’m not sure I’m convinced of that, though I’m not sure what else can be done at this point.
Finally a lesson learned that has nothing to do with the remodeling project.
If you’re ever out in your backyard smoking some ribs, and you have left-over apple cider and oil you’ve been using to spray on the ribs to keep them moist during smoking, don’t just toss the remaining cider on the lawn. It’s not just like water.
Today the dry wall people came and patched things up.
You can see they got the left-over wall all covered up. Patched up the holes in the walls and fixed up the ceiling.
And over here is the other side of the opening to the family room. Guess we’ll have a little angle-thing in the corner there.
I cheated a bit. I know I said I’d blog every day someone was here doing something. Well, yesterday the electrician was back doing a couple more things. They put in one too many can-lights in the ceiling so he had to come back and remove the wiring for one of them. That was about it. Didn’t seem worth blogging about so I didn’t. Mea culpa.
Guess the city of Janesville is satisfied with their work. Yep, that’s all that was done today.
JIm
p.s. I got to help my son change the spark plugs in his car. OK, he did all the work and I stood around and made fun of him. That’s kind of like helping.
Today we got some electrical work done. How about that. Let’s look at a couple of views from the corners.
Each of those place where there are white wires hanging down out of holes in the ceiling is where can lights are supposed to go. Curiously, the plans called for 9 can lights to go into the ceiling. When I was speaking with Jerry a week or so ago I was questioning the need for 9 new can lights given that we’re supposed to have 3 pendants hanging over the island. He assured me we’d figure all that out when the electrician came and he’d make suggestions and we’d talk about it and I should not worry.
Now I got holes in the ceiling all wired up and I’m not quite sure I want them that way. And they never did talk with us about it beforehand. Is this normal for contractors? I also noticed there are only 2 pendants roughed in over the island where there’s supposed to be 3. Guess we have some talking to do. And probably a dreaded change order.
On the bright side, I figured out what “nailing plates” are. See these
Those are nailing plates. Imagine if you will, people hanging drywall with screws (or perhaps nails). They could easily drive that sucker right into the pipes. Hence, put in a nailing plate and that’ll stop any nails or screws from causing you a much bigger problem. I noticed we got a bunch of those nailed up all over the place where the wiring goes through the joists as well. Of course, if Wisconsin used conduit, they wouldn’t have to put in nailing plates to protect the wiring, but that’s a story for another day.
That brings us to the end of day 22. Hope you’ve been enjoying this. See you tomorrow.
What?!? Day 21! Yeah, I reconsidered my day numbering convention. At first, I was going to go by work-days. They started on Tuesday the first, worked through Friday the 4th, that’s 4 days, but then I counted the following Monday as day 5, not day 7. But now with this lull I realized, who cares about work-days, I want to keep count of how many days I’m without a functioning kitchen! So, this is Day 21. So there.
Finally got back to work today. Plumber came to remove some old plumbing and put in some new.
See those nice new pipes sticking up out of the floor? That’s our water for our sink and a drain. How nice.
See those tape lines on the floor? Dena and I got impatient and taped out where the island was going to go so we could get a better feel for what this will look like when it’s done. We like it so far.
They also took out that last little bit of wall. Cabinets will be all along that wall.
I thought about titling this post, “Another day, another change-order”. Any time something new comes up that wasn’t in the original estimate, they file what they call a change-order. It’s essentially a legal addendum to our contract specifying what additional thing we’re going to have to pay for. Some of these have been expected—money for the permits, credit for their not having to jack-hammer out the concrete in the foyer. That sort of things. Others not so expected, but I kinda feel like they should have been.
Take today for instance. We’re going to have another change order because, by code, when they put in new plumbing they also have to put in something called “nailing plates”. Now, if this is something required by code and they knew they were putting in new plumbing, don’t you think they would have known they also had to put in nailing plates and factored that into the estimate? I think so. smh
Anyway, it was good to once again see some progress. I’ll keep on blogging as long as they keep on working.
Well, today we got some good news and some bad news.
The good news: Got a call from the lead guy, Jerry, telling me things are going great. They got the inspection from the city today and all is well. They are happy with all the structural work and things can move ahead. Even better, the workers are ahead of schedule even, way ahead of schedule. Things are great.
The bad news: According to the schedule, the next step is to have the electrician and plumber come in and do the work they need to do. But, since we’re way ahead of schedule, they aren’t ready to be here until week after next. So…a bit of a “lull” in the project. If they can get the folks to come out sooner, great, but usually they’re pretty booked up so…be patient.
